Post by Amy Freeman
I remember in the early 90’s watching my nana and pop switch from butter to margarine, whole to skim milk and where possible, full fat to low fat. The 80’s and 90’s was the start of what would become a processed food epidemic. As Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig were constantly being advertised on TV and in magazines, leading the ‘weight loss’ industry and the ‘microwave meal’ industry, woman were becoming more body conscious and diabetes was on the rise. It became a highly publicized and popular belief that calories in and calories out was all that mattered, low fat was the key and all carbohydrates were equal. Enter the diabetes and obesity epidemic!
The unfortunate thing is that the belief systems that were used for weight loss in the 80’s and 90’s are still held in high regard to this day. Trying to convince people that eating natural butter is BETTER than processed margarine is a daily battle. Trying to convince people that full fat milk or cream is BETTER for your insulin levels than low fat or skimmed milk is hard to land with a lot of people.
The reason ‘Paleo’/Whole Food nutrition (or clean eating as I call it) has been so successful, is that it is taking people back to eating a very similar diet to those that lived in our grandparents era. Home made food, unprocessed junk food, lots of fruit, veggies and meat, this style of eating is identical to how our wirery, fit and non diabetic ancestors lived. Even though I remember my nana’s baking yummy desserts, they didn’t eat it in copious amounts and binge till they burst on a Saturday night. They worked it into their active, busy lifestyles and treated food as fuel and NOT as bribery or reward on a daily basis.
When my nana passed away and we were going through her bookshelf I remember the copious amounts of nutrition books she had collected over the years. Amongst what must have been around 50 of them, there were soup diet books, detox books, vegetarian diet books, liver cleansing books and a number of diabetes books. I remember feeling really impressed and proud that my nana had been so conscientious about being informed of health and wellbeing.
The problem is that behind all these diet books is a person trying to make money. Telling people to eat natural foods with correct portions and live a balanced lifestyle isn’t going to make the authors of these nutrition books any money. Instead, what sells is ‘14 Day Detox’s’,‘Lose 10 Pounds in 5 Days’, ‘Do the Dukan Diet’ or ‘Do the Atkins Diet’. Around the time that these books started becoming popular, curvy models were out and skinny was in and magazines really started to promote size 0 as ideal.
The amount of clients, family members and friends that I have seen fall into the trap of going on one of these unrealistic diets and rebound back from it (me included), is ridiculous. Through this a lot of people have developed unhealthy relationships’ with food from being convinced that low fat/ low carb is the only way to lose weight and then go 4 months without so much as one lick of an ice cream only to then rebound and go the other way and live in a chocolate coma for a month. Both extremes are as bad as each other and each time your body goes through this cycle is going to make it harder the next time you try to lose weight.
Being perfect, eating only grilled chicken and veggies, not socializing in case you slip up, feeling guilt when you have 2 eggs instead of 4 egg whites and doing 2 hours of cardio a day is not maintainable. Unless you are going to compete as a figure athlete and you are close to competition, quiet frankly, its stupid and absolutely unnecessary. I give it around 3-4 months before burnout and 4-6 months before you put all that weight you lost back on and then some.
Making healthy choices, eating whole foods like our grandparents and having a balanced workout routine and doing it consistently for 6-12-18 plus months is going to get you results that you can maintain forever. Yes you will need to be patient, it wont happen overnight and there will be times where you get frustrated but weight loss and well being should be treated as a marathon, not a sprint. It will be worth it when you have reached your goal and can still enjoy your life without feeling deprived of food or guilty every time you have a treat.
Happy Training Kuwait
Post by Amy Freeman, a Strength and Conditioning Coach from New Zealand and currently a Personal Trainer at Inspire Pure Fitness in Kuwait.
Image by akeelsworld
14 replies on “Our grandparents had it right”
Good post, would like to see more like this, as well as how we can incorporate this kind of diet in Kuwait (e.g. best places to shop, what type of ingredients/meals while working on a budget). My house has been trying a wholesome/paleo grocery list for some time now, and we take it a bit relaxed on the weekends. I by no means am a healthy guy, and I rarely exercise other than the occasional trip to the pool.
However, just by cutting junk and sugar and simple carbs, we’ve seen (slow but steady) results.
However, we have seen our grocery bills skyrocket, particularly when you start to really analyze the ingredients list (I hate how Sultan places their weak Arabic version right over the comprehensive English one!).
touche
THANK YOU!
@khaled thanks for your feedback I will definitely look into doing a post on good places to grocery shop etc, but good for you adopting healthy choices where you can. Every healthier choice you make no matter how small makes a difference.
@rawan thanks so much
The problem with today’s diet is everything is fast. Fast food and processed food. Nothing is natural. There is a reason why Kuwait has higher diabetes rate than other countries (I am diabetic too). There is alot of dependency on processed food for our daily diet.
People who try to lose weight, expect to cut back on food and weight loss well just occur. Diet is not something you go through for a while until you reach your goal. Diet is a lifetime choice of eating well, not just to lose weight, but to be healthy.
You can be really thin and still have very high cholesterol and also die from heart attack. Its about eating healthy. Which is really hard these days, specially for single people and people with limited time. If you have a 9 to 5 job, last thing you can think of is eating healthy. Which is wrong of course, but that is how it is.
Cutting calories in half is good for weight loss, but eating healthy is good for you, including weight loss and other things. I blame the food industry and the chase for profits. Most of our food has no semblance from nature. Orange drinks with no orange. Chemicals in our drinks. High fructose syrup instead of sugar (which neither is healthy anyway). Things that doesn’t even exist in nature. You know rice is not actually white in nature. Neither is bread. We remove the healthy fibers and then infuse the rice and bread with sugar.
The healthy sugar comes from fruit, because fruit sugar is not the same as white sugar. The body break them differently.
Food inc is a good movie to show the evil of this food corporations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
Corporations are not evil, they simply want to reduce cost, because you, the consumer, wants it cheap. That’s why your T-Shirt is made by slave laborer in Bangladesh, and not handcrafted by an Italian tailor.
https://www.wtsp.com/story/money/2014/06/22/consumers-natural-warning/11236929/
I’ve been on Paleo diet for two years now and I feel great. I’ve had no pasta, rice, pasteries, potatos, or any type of proccesed food and absolutely no junk food of any kind in that time. I lost 13 KG without even trying. My excersice consists of walking for an hour & a half 5 times a week. As for the expense, you really don’t need to buy exotic food from D&D or even Sultan. Get plenty of fruits & vegs, chicken & eggs from your coop. Get fish from the fish market & minimize the consumption of things like expensive beef steak. Personally, I don’t eat red meat anyway, so it’s not an issue & my grocery bills are just fine.
I agree with you in terms of cutting junk and processed foods, as well as following a whole foods diet. Yet, I believe that the paleo diet is not a healthy guide in dieting. Paleo diet, adopted by Lorain Cordian, promotes the intake of more than 50% of calories from animal proteins and fats; so called “game” meat. This is particularly dangerous, as it has been shown that animal fat and protein are both associated with top 3 causes of death (i.e. heart disease, cancer and diabetes). This has been shown in many studies and observations such as the Ornish Study and the China Study.
I believe the solution to our health epidemic is to leave out all the meat and dairy, and follow a whole plant based diet, which is naturally low in fat and protein and high in carbohydrates. I recommend reading the Low Carb Fraud and Whole, two brilliant books on whole plant based eating written by Dr. T Colin Campbell.
Great post, Amy! You’re absolutely right, it isn’t sustainable to be the “perfect eater.” I tried that, lost weight, looked good, but…I was miserable. Plus that kind of a regime tends to turn you into a social drag. People secretly roll their eyes when they see you pick fastidiously at the fare. I agree with Buzz, you don’t really need to go all out and buy expensive exotic food, just shop smart and work with a “clean” larder, have a balanced diet and couple it with a proper structured workout with weights and cardio intervals. And if I feel the need to indulge once or even twice a week, I don’t stop myself. The other thing I realized is to work with the body type you were born with. A naturally curvaceous or buxom woman should avoid the unrealistic goal (purely personal opinion) of looking like, say Kate Moss! It’s self-esteem suicide. Again, thanks for a fantastic post!
the Paleo diet is really good. But, although I’m not a nutritionist, I don’t think that carbs (rice, bread, pasta, potatoes…) should be completely be taken out. Atleast i can’t live without it!
And as someone else mentioned the high consumption of meat can be a slight issue, which can easily be sidestepped by smart replacements.
In Kuwait, our grandparents were more likely to be malnourished than healthy. Their life expectancy was not more than 50. We are a desert country, we didn’t have gardens of “organically” grown fresh fruit and vegetables.
I mean, you can go Paleo if you want, but I do find it amusing how the people we’re supposed to be emulating here died young…